


Under the Gathering Storm

by AsheTarasovich (natalieashe), Boffin1710



Series: Can't Drown My Demons, They Know How To Swim [34]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Aggression, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anger, Angst, Assault, Choking, Distress, Drinking, Established Relationship, Fear, Fighting, M/M, No James in This Story, Not Happy, Storms, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 08:41:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11551602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalieashe/pseuds/AsheTarasovich, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boffin1710/pseuds/Boffin1710
Summary: Alec took a long drink from his steaming mug and grimaced.  It wasn't only the temperature that burned his gullet on the way down.  The unhealthy amount of vodka hidden in the coffee added a certain heat that helped.  Or not.  He didn't know anymore.Alec's dark moods are unpredictable.  This time Q is caught up in the storm.





	Under the Gathering Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This story may be triggering for anyone with experience of physical violence, domestic violence (although this is NOT a domestic violence situation), or people with mental disorders that come out as violent behaviour. Please heed this warning and don't read if you think you may be affected.

Alec took a long drink from his steaming mug and grimaced.  It wasn't only the temperature that burned his gullet on the way down.  The unhealthy amount of vodka hidden in the coffee added a certain heat that helped.  Or not.  He didn't know anymore.  

Dusk hung heavy on the city.  Filthy swollen clouds, bloated and brooding.  His mood made visible, and the tiny twinkle of the garden lights entwined in the climbers were the only stars.  Glowing with a memory of the sun.  

A sun that failed to warm him no matter how long he spent under it.

He gulped the rest of the coffee down, gagging on its burn, forcing himself not to throw it all back up.  When the mug was empty he tossed it at the brick wall and watched the chunky shards drop amongst the flowers like ghostly shells.

The climbing roses needed to be pruned.  Alec reached behind the thickest part of the twining stems and felt for the recess in the bricks, extracting the bottle he had concealed there.  

The only one Q didn't know about.  

The only one Q hadn't emptied down the sink in front of him two nights ago.

"This is not the fucking answer, Alec.  You know it's not.  Take the fucking meds."

"Fuck you."  Alec hadn't even managed to muster up any anger.  Too exhausted for that.  Instead he had decamped to the garden and only set foot inside the flat to piss.  Ignored all attempts by Q to connect with him.

Kitchen darkened, Q stood just inside the garden door in the shadows watching Alec lurk darkly amongst the foliage.  They would soon be going on the fourth day of this angry dark storm that was consuming their life at the moment.  

The mood he could somewhat understand.  It couldn't be easy to be a Double O.  Everyone thought they were heartless killers… assassins with a conscious about their actions.  Q knew better.  Witnessed what surfaced when the emotions buried inside ruled over the calm cold exterior of an agent in mission mode.   Alec was one of the best at hiding all those emotions, even better than Bond.

But sometimes… no matter what Alec did to hide them or refused that they existed… those emotions built up and forced their way outside. 

And those were the times that Q wasn't sure how to handle the dark Russian storm that was looming in the garden threatening to destroy the flat.  

Reasoning didn't work.  Alec just scoffed at that.  And the same thing occurred when Q tried to threaten him.  

The best he could do was try to ride it out and hopefully they wouldn't come out too battered when the storm dissipated …. but he wasn't convinced.  

The sky brightened briefly, a moment of dove-grey relief in the boiling sooty charcoal of the evening.  As Alec raised the bottle to his lips the first fat drops of rain pattered onto the paving.  One struck Alec in the centre of his forehead, and he kept his face raised to the coming storm, bottle cradled to his chest, hugging himself.

Ozone.  The smell of an oncoming release of energy.  Anger, rage, pent up aggression.  So much potential energy contained in a storm about to break.

Alec's muscles felt tight, the way they did after a run when he hadn't properly warmed up.  High on adrenaline, but frozen in time.  Flight. Fight. Fury.

"I knew you had more."

Q stood at the back door, arms crossed, and stared at the statue of his lover.  Lit up from behind by the occasional flash.  Alec slowly tipped his chin to stare through the darkness.

"So what?  You're going to take it from me now?"

“We talked about this Alec. It just makes it worse!”  Q stated plainly as if were facts in a mission brief.  Thunder rolled overhead.  Lightning skated across the sky, multi cracks in the facade of darkness.  A drop splattered rain across Q’s glasses as the air grew close with the coming storm, in the sky and in the garden 

“No you moaned about it Q and I did my best to ignore your bloody prattle.”

“Give me a the bottle Alec,” Q made his way down the steps and out into the garden towards Alec.  If he had been on the other end of a comms with an agent making such a move, he would have been chastising said agent and telling them to retreat and rethink. 

But Q was not known for listening to his own logic at times. Soon he was standing, hand outstretched, in front of the taller and more muscular already pissed Cossack who was claiming the garden as his kingdom.

“I don't think so Quartermaster.”  Alec snarled at him.  Lightning struck someplace close illuminating the garden for a few brief seconds as the rain began to fall a little harder. 

Q reached out to grab the bottle away from him in the flash of light but Alec saw the movement and caught his wrist as it came up in one of his larger hands. He spun Q around, pinning his hand up high behind his back.  

“Leave me alone, you little shite.”  Alec snarled close to his ear from behind, giving him a shove away causing Q to stumble and need to catch himself on the edge of a chair.  

Q turned and stalked back towards him as the storm broke in the sky with an intense display of lightning and roaring thunder.  “You bastard,” Q huffed at him seeing Alec’s hand come up again. But this time Q ducked it and swung a fist back at Alec connecting just under his left ear. “Not putting up with your shite tonight, Alec!”

Alec roared at the sudden pain.  He lunged for his lover, thick fingers closing painfully on Q's upper arm.   
  
"It's not fucking difficult, Q.  Get the fuck out of my face!"   
  
Q's other arm came up to protect himself and connected with Alec's forearm. The bottle tumbled from Alec's grip, lashing rain turning the glass slippery.  It bounced, once, twice, then broke, showering them in warmer drops than the rain.   
  
Alec's bellow of grief was almost drowned by the clap of thunder that rattled the Quartermaster's teeth.  Q ducked instinctively away from the noise, but it afforded Alec a better opportunity to seize him.   
  
Alec's muscular arm locked around Q's neck as he dragged Q off-balance.  Q clawed at Alec's skin, feet scrabbling uselessly on the slick mossy paving stones , scraping over broken glass, as the much stronger man hauled him across the garden.   
  
Q's glasses were lost, tumbling from his face to be trampled underfoot.  Water streamed down both their faces, plastering hair to their heads.   
  
Alec's heel caught on the small step and then the pair were falling with no chance of saving themselves.  Alec didn't even try.  He landed heavily on his back seeming oblivious to the impact.  Q sprawled on top of him, still kicking and fighting for air.   
  
"Alec..." Q gasped, struggling frantically against the pressure on this throat, but Alec screaming incomprehensible Russian at the cracks appearing in his world.

Q tried elbowing Alec in the side hoping he would hit a still aching bruised spot from his last mission to no avail.   Alec howled in Russian like a wounded animal joining in with the roaring storm around them.  “Alec…” Q gasped trying to convince himself that Alec couldn't hear him above the din of the thunder.  

In his alcohol and anger warped mood, Alec had moved on from their garden in the middle of a raging storm to somewhere in a mission at one point in time in his tumultuous career.   He was far away.  Far from the home soil of London.  

Q fought him and Alec fought back cursing MI6, the world, and his own existence.  Long thin legs kicked out against stronger more muscular ones.  If he could just find some balance, get turned over… but his feet slid out from under him every time he tried to brace himself against the rain soaked pavers of the garden floor. 

Slender fingers frantically grasped and beat at the thick arm around his neck.   “No… ‘lec.”   Hands moved above and fluttered briefly in front of the contorted face that loomed underneath him to get Alec’s attention, an attempt to refocus him back to the here and now.  

Lights sparked behind Q's eyelids as panic drove whatever breath was left from his body.  He was fighting for his life against a destructive force of nature.  The deluge had soaked them both to the skin and Q felt a chill creep into his core.  A creeping heaviness in his limbs.  With a last desperate attempt to reach Alec he did the only thing left to him... he went limp.

It was a few more terrifying moments before Alec realised his captive was no longer struggling.  He threw the unresponsive body away from him and came rolling to his knees, still ready for the fight.  Blinking rainwater from his eyes he pushed at his sodden hair, crouched, ready to spring, but the other man lay still in a puddle, curled in on himself.

The rain fell steadily, but the thunder grumbled it's way north, away from the city.  The spears of lightning were flickers of brightness, briefly throwing wet shining highlights on the inky ground.  Alec lowered himself painfully to the ground, breathing heavily, trying to drag some recognition of his surroundings to the fore.

Lightning streaked through the sky once more highlighting his intertwined Jacmanii and Sweet Autumn Clematis that grew up the far garden wall. Petals now scattering across the ground in the fierce wind.  Alec blinked back the droplets of rain that streaked down his face, brushing away a petal that stuck to his cheek.   Breathing hard he tried to focus but the world swam and unfocused.  Wind pushed at the miniature roses, that stood rigid.  They had just appeared one day for him to plant without Q saying a word.     
  
Alec jumped and spun around ready to take on his attacker when a lounge chair toppled over crashing to the ground spilling its cushions into a rising puddle.  His large calloused hand brushed over his face, pushing rain away as he began to realise that he was in their garden space and not on some far away hell hole mission.     
  
He slowly turned in the darkness, off balance, trying to keep his footing in the standing puddle but came up short.  There, outlined in the latest flash of lighting, was the crumpled form of someone lying in inches of standing water. 

"Q?"  

Alec reached out a hand but drew back, confusion clouding his mind.  Q was here, with him, in this hell?  But...  A dozen or more petals swirled in the wind, catching on the overturned chair and the bedraggled body.  No, not a body... 

"Q?!  Bloody fuck!"

Alec fell to his knees heedless of the devastation whirling around them.  His head swam with the alcohol, and when he tried to lift the frail form of his lover from the floor he found tremors in his hands made it almost impossible to get a secure grip.

Somehow he managed to drag the unconscious Q into his lap, holding him tight against his chest and smoothing the sleek black hair away from Q's pale face.  Deathly pale, made ghostly in the weakening flashes.  

"No, oh fuck no...  Come on, Q.  I'm sorry... fuck, I'm so sorry..."

Lighting and thunder flared in the distance again, the second wave of the storm threatening the boroughs.   The violent crackling lightning cast a surreal light show across the garden reflecting in the puddles.  Alec was shaking so hard that he didn't notice the shallow labored breathing of his lover cradled in his arms.   
  
Alec buried his face in the dark damp curls tucked under his chin.  "Come on Q... fuck... I'm...". Pulling back, Alec cupped  Q's pale chin in his hand trying to see signs of life in his face fearing what he would find.    
  
Eyelids fluttered as Q surfaced once more. Blinded by the darkness and his lack of glasses, he began to gasp and flail at the arms tightly wrapped around him fearing he was still in the grasp of Alec's delusion, "Let me go!  'Lec... Bastard..." struggling and pushing at him, voice raspy from their moments ago tussle. 

"Oh, thank fuck!  I..."

Q continued to lash out, frantically trying to get away from Alec.  "Get off... don't..."  

He threw himself out of Alec's arms and splashed into the water once more, hands going to his bruised neck.  Breathing was difficult, painful.  The air was cloying, not yet having given way to the refreshing washed-clean scents of a passing storm, and it felt like it stuck in his throat, unable to pass freely into his strained lungs.  He coughed, choked, gagged.  

Alec moved towards him and Q scrambled backwards, falling into the mess of broken glass and garden debris with a frightened moan.  Q's wide-eyed fear was not a look Alec ever wanted to see directed at him.

"Q please...  I-I didn't mean to..."  He collapsed against a low wall, hands held out, palms wide and empty.  "I would never..."  With a low keening moan Alec buried his face in his hands, trembling and stomach churning.  What had he done?  Why?  

Q gagged and choked trying to gain some composure, struggling to normal panic but he struggled not to vomit in fear.  Things had been rough... physical... before between the two of them, but never to this extreme.     
  
Alec stared at him lost, fearful before burying his face in his hands.   Q was torn between wanting to scream at him to never touch him again and going to comfort his distraught lover.   Q tried to stand on unsteady legs, placing a hand down into broken bottle shards, and instead managed to crawl to within arms range.   
  
"Bastard!  'Lec!" Q managed to squeak out trying to get the man's attention.  Q kicked out at one of Alec's feet, giving him a nudge.  He was still leery to get too close, not able to judge Alec's current state.  "With me?"

Alec tried to speak but his teeth began to chatter uncontrollably.  Managed a nod but couldn't look Q in the eye.  He huddled in on himself and wished he was anywhere but the garden right now.  Far away from the damage he had done.   
  
"Don't get 'way with s'lence.  Not now."  Q croaked.  "Look at me. Bastard."  He kicked out again, risked leaning close enough to pull one of Alec's hands away from his face.  "Say it!"   
  
Q almost backed down when Alec moved towards him, but all the agent did was crawl to lean against Q's shoulder.  Q could feel how badly he was shaking along the full length of his body.   
  
"'m sorry."   
  
"No.  Not tha’"  Q took Alec's hands, feeling somewhat safer to have some forewarning if he was going to strike again.  He coughed and Alec tried to pull away but Q tightened his grip.  "Say I was righ’."   
  
Alec let out a broken laugh.  "Never give up, even when things go to hell."

Q glared at him, still struggled to catch his breath and swallow making words painful.  "Bastard. 'aven't broken completely yet. 'ever give up." Last few words coming out with gasping cough, that almost made him gag, bringing more tears to his already reddened eyes.     
  
"Broken…” Alec scoffed. “Not so sure I'm not."  Alec tried to pull away again, but Q gripped his hands as much as he dared.    
  
"No!  Say it 'lec!" Q insisted as he nudged Alec's leg again not as hard as before.     
  
"You…. you were right."  Alec muttered barely audible.  He didn't dare look at Q fearing what he would see in his eyes.  How was he ever going to meet his gaze again?  Make this up to him? This would be the end of them.    


"... do… ‘omething about it 'lec".  Q started to move away from him but in his struggle to gain his balance he got half way up and found himself still off kilter slipping to the ground again. "Fuck..."   
  
"Q... I'm so sorry." Alec muttered again trying to hold back a sob.     


They were silent for a while, both of them reflecting on the evening, listening to the patter of rain and the storm finally rolling away.  The wind had dropped as quickly as it came leaving petals and foliage scattered over the garden.     
  
A fresh earthy smell replaced the tang of ozone.  "Petrichor," Alec said softly, recalled from one of Q's etymology lessons when Alec had tried explaining why he loved the smell of a summer storm.   
  
Q frowned at him. If Alec was going to try avoiding this with some random...   
  
"This.  Us.  You told me that.  Those small things keep me grounded.  I lost sight of that.  Lost myself."   
  
Q sighed.  It was the longest speech Alec had made in days.  Q was relieved the snarling had died out with the storm but he couldn't let it go, to be forgotten, hidden away.     
  
"Don' let me down," Q rasped.  "Sort 'rself out, or no us.  One and only chance 'lec."   
  
Alec glanced at him sharply, finally allowing himself to meet Q's eyes through the gloom.  What he saw there, made him swallow nervously.  He nodded.     
  
"Understood Quartermaster."

Q turned away and managed to get himself up on his knees.  But it took steadying himself with an overturned chair to actually get to his feet.  He started to slowly make his way to the door to the flat but stopped.  “Glasses… Fuck.”

“Think they’re broken.” Alec gathered up the remains of them off the ground and placed them in Q’s hand before trying to place a hand underneath Q’s elbow to help him inside.

“No!” Q pulled away from him with a jerk almost sending himself back to the ground with his throbbing head and dizziness.

“Come on Q.   Let me…” But Q waved him off and slowly made his way to the door as Alec watched from the shadows of the garden. 

By the time Alec stepped across the threshold Q was nowhere to be seen, but his wet clothes were in a soggy pile in the middle of the kitchen floor.  His broken glasses were on the counter, and one drawer stood open and rifled.  Q obviously looking for a spare pair.  

Alec picked up Q's clothes and tossed them into the laundry.  Stripped off his own too and grabbed a towel from the downstairs bathroom to wrap around his waist.  As he slid the drawer shut Alec spotted the packet of pills lying next to the message pad below the telephone.  

He picked it up.  Turned it over and over.  The promise of dreamless sleep and quelling the chaos inside for a while.  The risk of limiting his career... maybe even ending it.  Possibly the only thing that would save him and Q.

Scribbled on the pad in Q's handwriting was a phone number.  Psyche.  The new one.  A noise from the stairs alerted him to Q sitting on the top step watching him, dressed in a hoodie of Alec's and with a new pair of glasses.  Alec gave him a weak smile and acknowledged him with a silent nod.  

Picked up the phone and dialled...

 


End file.
